Along the Milky Way

I have been asked by a number of people what the
Milky Way is and why they cannot see it anymore. Often, people
tell me that they used to see it when they were a child, but do
not see it anymore. The Milky Way is indeed still there and you
can see it, if you get away from light polluted skies.

Long ago, people also wondered what the Milky Way
was, and they had a number of interesting legends to explain
it.

The bushmen of the Kalahari desert said that long
ago there were no stars in the night sky. No-one could walk
around at night because they could not see and would bump into
things. One little girl who lived alone in a hut was very
lonely. She longed to go out at night and visit with people.
One night a spirit came and told her to take a pot of the
embers in her fire and throw them up into the air. The little
girl did as she was told and the embers were turned into the
Milky Way.

The Greeks were just as imaginative. They explain
it as the milk of the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus. It seems that
Zeus had a thing for mortal women. He would fall for them,
chase them and the end result was a few children of Zeus
origin. The problem was that the children would not share Zeus'
immortality unless they drank Hera's milk. And Hera was not
about to have anything to do with Zeua' love children.

Then Zeus developed a "thing" for Alcmene, she
did not particularly return the affection. Undaunted, Zeus
disguised himself as Alcmene's husband. Alcmene didn't know any
better and so welcomed him in. So much did Zeus enjoy himself,
that he extended the night for three days and out of this
affair, came Hercules. Hera, hearing this bedtime story, was
not amused., and managed to delay Hercules birth for a month.
The other gods on Olympus figured that in order to get Hercules
immortality they were going to have to pull a fast one on Hera.
One night, while she was sleeping, Hermes snuck in the infant
and let him have some of Heras milk. Hera awoke, and in
outrage, shoved the child back, though it was too late by then.
In the struggle however, some of the milk went into the sky and
become the Milky Way.

On a more tame note, many Siberian people see the
sky as a tent. They refer to the Milky Way as the seam of the
sky. Other cultures have called it the backbone of night.

What is the Milky Way? It is our home in the
universe. It is a large spiral galaxy, 80 light years in
diameter, composed of 100 billion stars, their planets, comets,
gas and dust. Our Sun and planets are located about 2/3 of the
way out in one of the arms, in what you might call the galactic
suburbs. The shape of the galaxy is round and flat except for
the center which is a thick bulge. Most of the contents of the
galaxy is toward the center.

The Milky Way itself is spinning. Our solar
system is traveling around in the galaxy at 560, 000 miles per
hour and it takes 182 million years for us to make one round
trip. Since the Earth formed, we have made 25 trips.

This time of year the Milky Way runs from
northeast, overhead and down to the southwest. This is the best
time of the year to view it, but, you will need dark skies
because it is easily obscured by street lights. But if you can
get out into the country, it is well worth the trip to see our
Galaxy.

I grew up in a very rural portion of Chester
County, miles from even street lights. The stars truly
glittered in the night sky, and never was the Milky Way more
prevalent. It appeared as a soft glittery glowing band across
the sky. It was quite breathtaking. In binoculars or a
telescope, the cloud is resolved into thousands of stars.

Unfortunately now, our skies are polluted with
street lights, flood lights and bill boards. Most are not the
shielded types and are more energy wasteful than they are
worth. We have lost many of our nighttime treasures. The Milky
Way is one of them. But if you can go out into the country,
somewhere where the skies are truly dark, you are in for a real
treat!